Monthly Archives: August 2015

With just a couple more preseason games before this years version of the NFL season begins and the Bears try to prove that they really are the Monsters of the Midway rather than the Midwives of the Midway. They’ve got a tough field to travel with games against the hated Green Bay Packers, the disliked Seattle Seahawks, and the team that long ago and not so far away played in the same city, the Cardinals of Arizona, formerly of St. Louis, and previously of Chicago. Three teams that are each considered strong Super Bowl candidates.

That trio is followed by the Raiders, Chiefs, and Lions. Three teams the Bears have a more likely chance to beat. However, most frognosticators are croaking the Bears will be 0 – 6 or at best 2 – 4 when they go into their thank-the-good-Lord-we-need-a-break Bye week. It doesn’t get much easier after that with games against only three teams that did not finish last year with a winning record. In other words, only three teams that according to some of the speculists will give the Bears a chance not to finish the season 0 – 16.

I’m inclined to believe the Bears will surprise and carry at least an 8 – 8 record at the end of the season. Needless to say, I’m also an optimist. I sincerely thought that last year was going to be the year the Bears beat the Packers not once, but twice and would march into the playoffs as division champs with an 11 – 5 record.

Yes, it’s taken awhile to scrape the egg, not to mention the pain, off my face.

So, here is my question: Would you rather see the Bears not embarrass themselves any further, surprise just about everyone (including me when I’m being realistic), and make the playoffs (where they are again likely to have to face some combination of the Packers, Seahawks, and Cardinals) or would your rather end the year with a record no better than 3 – 13 so they will have a chance to pick early in the draft and maybe pick a franchise quarterback?

Which would you rather see: the Bears metaphorically sticking their tongues out at everyone at the end of this year or possibly in the future?

There is a moment, a delightful moment, a wondrous moment, a terrible moment, a moment when all thoughts and cares and meanderings leave the mind, a moment when body and soul and mind are united in taking the being that is you into the other world we exist in, that world that seems to be neither here nor there, but it is the world we inhabit when we sleep and it is into sleep that we are slipping at that moment.